Pivot
by Nugrey
Summary: There was more to the story.....Completed
1. The Stage Is Set

**Pivot**

_Labyrinth – Where everything seems possible and nothing is what it seems_ **Labyrinth Movie Slogan**

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Amid swirling skirts and masked depravity he gracefully moved like a predator. His eyes missed nothing. Oh, there were all here, better than he could have hoped for...more delicious than he could have planned. He drank in the sight of the frolicking heartless creatures that felt only a hunger for pain that was great enough to deliver them from the hollow emptiness.

Bodies swayed and carelessly flowed through the gossamer ballroom as through invisibly orchestrated by puppeteer without aspiration. Suspended chandeliers dripped cascading wax over strands of pearls hung carelessly like spider webs created an artwork all its own. Fettering gauze and gentle colors contrasted with the perverse spirit of the masquerade as graceful movements of feathered fans and mirrors concealed then revealed powerful undercurrents of shadowed desire.

Lust, pure as love, permeated the air as tittering, sensuous body language flowed through the crowd. Revelers, royal patrons, masked as hideous goblins wore muted hues of autumn costuming that gave the atmosphere a pagan feel and texture – what dark thoughts beat under the coverings of silk and lace?

Oh yes, they were all here to be a part of this danse macabre – a dance of the end to innocence. Feeling almost giddy with power he joined the scheming mass, he danced with a red haired woman – then another and another. He wanted to blend in – not give the impression as being more than a participant in this immoral play. He was careful, very careful to completely hide his face under the white bone mask so none would remember him...especially not her.

Women danced together as lovers, masks with obscene features and sexual gesturing puppets created an air of corruption so thick he could cut it with a knife, slash its black heart. He danced and moved with these soulless creatures to discordant music that filled the graceless elegant ballroom – dissonant just enough to echo the distortions inside its inhabitants.

A tall slender figure appeared dressed in a midnight blue tailored flock; he stood out from all the others with his regal bearing and unmasked handsome features. "Ah yes", the man in the bone mask mused to himself, "the author of this illusion."

As women's eyes followed him, the Goblin King moved self-assured through the throng with a smirk on his beautiful face. He was amazed Sarah had gotten this far really... surprised at her determination. The goblins had given the girl the words to take the baby...words she said...words that forced him to deal with the situation...what is said is said.

Jareth had initially dismissed her as a whimpering spoiled child..."Go back to your room and play with your toys and costumes"...she stuck him as shallow enough to grab the crystal and run.

He saw her hesitate...then say, "I can't"...impatient he made the offer of beating the Labyrinth...running the maze...he thought she'd refuse...say something like, "It's not fair" and turn tail. But she did not...such a pity...it would have been easier on both of them.

Never had he imagined she would get this far...hmmm...perhaps he had underestimated her. Well, no matter – she was going to be beaten now. Maybe it was a little underhanded to use her dreams against her but he grew impatient with waiting for her to fail or quit.

Soon she will be here – soon it will be over – Jareth smiled canine at his assured victory and melted into the crowd to wait for her arrival. Unknown to the Goblin King another pair of eyes behind a bone mask intently watched his form disappear as dancers moved between them swallowed his retreating figure.


	2. Magic Dance

**Magic Dance**

**To Anne Boleyn (1528) **_My Mistress and Friend,  
I and my heart put ourselves in your hands, begging you to recommend us to your good grace and not to let absence lessen your affection...  
For myself the pang of absence is already to great, and when I think of the increase of what I must needs suffer it would be well nigh intolerable but for my firm hope of your unchangeable affection..._ **Henry VIII  
**

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Although most of them didn't see her, everyone in the ballroom sensed her arrival – the child/woman – the girl named Sarah. Dressed in a billowing luminous gown of silvery white with beaded strings adorning her thick long tresses the young girl looked out of place amid hideous masks and autumn colored frocks. "Like an innocent lamb among wolves." Thought the bone-masked man as he swirled his dance partner past her.

Sarah's eyes shifted around the room; she felt confused as though she had lost something – or perhaps someone. She didn't analyze how she got there; like in a dream she accepted that as a matter of course without question. All she knew is she had to find "him" although she didn't know who "he" was or even why. As she began to move through and scan the crowd the need to find "him" became more urgent – even imperative.

Small groups joked and laughed intimately, lovers pawed and dancers swirled while Sarah searched among them in the decadent seemingly endless room. Jareth smirked from behind her moving form, careful to stay out of her line of vision. "This is really too much fun," he thought as he moved fluidly to yet another place where she would not see him, even if she turned.

Weaving her way through the mass of merrymakers she felt she was being watched and turned her head around to see if she could spot the source of the feeling – she saw no one staring at her and turned away. Sarah was right in her assessment though– she was being intensely watched by two figures unknown to each other – a Goblin King and a man in a bone mask.

The masquerade was carefully staged to seem as if her presence was irrelevant – as though the event was being held for reasons unrelated to her. But that was far from the truth – this was a dream crystal that was carefully created from one of Sarah's most powerful fantasies - her fantasy of true love.

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It was not an easy fantasy for the Goblin King to recreate...the more powerful the emotions of the dreamer the more complex and intricate the dream crystal had to be. It had taken great energy for Jareth to conjure the all the details of the masquerade and summon his doppelganger to enter the illusion. Of course, he had to improvise some things from his own imagination – Sarah's dream, like most, was not complete in all its finer points.

But a dream contains great power – and the stronger the dreamer the more power it holds. In Sarah's case the fantasy was so powerful that in effect the crystal Jareth created was really a pretty oubliette – a place of forgetting Toby and the challenge. The Goblin King was confident that her strong desires and his double would distract her long enough for the allotted thirteen hours to run out before she understood what happened. Actually, in rare instances, the vision is so powerful the dreamer becomes the dream. Becomes lost in it forever, not long at all

Jareth lounged on his throne with Toby on his lap holding a crystal up for both of them to see. "There she is - see Sarah?" Jareth whispered into Toby's ear as the baby reached for the shimmering girl in the crystal. "Well, take a good look because she's forgotten all about you – and soon you will forget all about her and become mine." Not understanding what Jareth was saying but responding to the playful tone of the man's voice Toby looked at the Goblin King and smiled. Overconfident that Sarah would not escape her dream Jareth made the crystal vanish and smiled back canine. Time could be so cruel.

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"The Goblin King fancies himself powerful and clever," the bone masked man thought as he watched Jareth play cat and mouse with Sarah in the distorted dream. "We will see who is the puppet and who is the master."


	3. Timeless

**Timeless**

_Doppelganger (doppelgaenger) a ghostly double of a living person; German doppel "double" + ganger "goer"._

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The man in the bone mask could sense the moment the "real" Jareth had stopped watching the crystal dream he had created for Sarah. He surmised the Goblin King was confident that the combination of her memory loss and his doppelganger's charms would leave Sarah so caught up in her fantasy she wouldn't try to escape the illusion.

Knowing he wasn't being watched the masked man stopped dancing and made a graceful sweeping motion in the air with his arm – immediately time stopped for all...for all but him.

The ballroom was frozen, stilled. Like mannequins capturing some eighteenth century scene in a wax museum the ménage of guests were fixed in place, frozen in expression. Eerily, even the candle flames in the myriad of chandeliers did not flicker.

"I stopped the stars for you, Sarah." The man whispered to no one as he moved past the inert dancers and advanced towards her suspended form.


	4. Spellbound

**Spellbound**

"_Know this, there is a price for dreams."_** Helena in Choices**

_Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress,  
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,  
And this all solemn silentness!_

**The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe**

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**The ballroom was silent...suspended in time. **

**Motionless, frozen...except for a lone figure leisurely making his way to Sarah's stilled form. Noticeably, his carriage was deliberate, controlled, as though he had all the time in the world...and perhaps he did. **

**Upon reaching Sarah he elegantly bowed to her as though presenting himself to request the honor of a dance. Upon becoming upright he raised his hand to his face and in one fluid motion swept his mask away, "The better to see you with...my dear." **

**Where Jareth was beautiful, graceful, light colored and sleek, this man was handsome, commanding, dark and powerful. His face was contemplative as he paced before her frozen figure, appraising her with intense blue eyes that absorbed every detail of her expression and stance. **

**He noticed that Sarah's hands had grasped the sides of her dress and her body was angled slightly outward from movement past a couple who were in conversation; her head and eyes were turned away from them silently searching the crowd for the Goblin King. **

**Stepping close to her he lifted then caressed a lock of her chestnut hair to his face closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Enraptured by the feel and scent of her he softly exhaled, "Sarah."**

**Gently letting the lock fall back on her shoulder his eyes wandered her facial features until they rested on her slightly parted lips. Lingering there, fresh desire arose within him as he entertained the thought they were begging to be kissed. As if she were made of the most delicate glass, he carefully leaned in and tenderly kissed her still mouth, moving and embracing her soft lips with his own. Drawing back only slight millimeters he huskily confided, "Forever, I am yours."**

**Momentarily satisfied by the intimate contact he abruptly drew away and began to examine the shimmering illusion surrounding them. He noted that the dream crystal had good bones, no doubt the pure elements from Sarah's fantasy, but there were serious flaws. It was obvious that Jareth had used his own imagination to complete the fantasy...Sarah would never have dreamed up the depraved guests or obscene Goblin costuming. The undertones of lust and pain were strictly Jareth, not Sarah at all. **

**Proceeding further into the throng of revelers he spied Jareth in conversation with a blond woman but his eyes were fixed on Sarah, silently watching her. He addressed the stilled doppelganger "You didn't count on me, did you Goblin King? But, then, how were you to know?"**

**Turning away he continued to inspect the elements contained in dream and began to think of ways to break the enchantment and free her from the sphere. But questions remained, how was he to make her see the dream was not hers? How to rouse her out of her fantasy without giving himself away? **

**Casually looking up and noticing the stilled flame of a candle inspiration struck...he would fight fire with fire. He would counteract the crystal's magic with a spell of his own. Confident in his plan he moved back in front Sarah's stilled form and closed his eyes. Energy and unnatural light filled the air around him as drew power from sources unseen. He opened his now fire filled eyes and looked directly into hers...his inhuman voice commanding entrance to her very being...her very core.**

_**These words are spoken, know them true**_

_**A false dream was woven as a snare for you**_

_**Your search for love will not end in this place**_

_**Not even in a Goblin King's hollow embrace**_

_**When you touch him a changed vision will be born**_

_**The dream will pivot to a nightmare of fright and scorn**_

_**Hear the clock remind you to complete your task**_

_**Breathe in the words of the man in the mask**_

**As the last words echoed in vast room his eyes and voice returned to their natural state...he again appeared to be just a man. Satisfied that with her next breath his spell would be set in Sarah's mind, the man stepped back ready to restart time. Replacing his mask he began to raise his arm...and hesitated.**

**Gazing on her innocent face and captive form an overwhelming desire possessed him to tell her the truth, even if she couldn't hear him. His expression slowly changed from indecision to resolve as he decided to tell her who he really was.**


	5. Perchance to Dream

**Perchance to Dream**

_He builded better than he knew; the conscious stone to beauty grew_.  
**Ralph Waldo Emerson**

**Legend of the Dreamcatcher**

_Long ago when the world was young, an old Lakota spiritual leader was on a high mountain and had a vision...In his vision, Iktomi, the great trickster and teacher of wisdom, appeared in the form of a spider. "If you believe in the great spirit, the web will catch your good ideas -- and the bad ones will go through the hole."  
The Lakota elder passed on his vision to his people and now the Sioux Indians use the dream catcher as the web of their life._

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Standing in front of Sarah's inert form he slowly removed his mask and lowered his arm letting it dangle from his fingertips. It somehow seemed fitting that he unmasked his face the same way he would reveal his inner self to her. Although his posturing seemed relaxed almost to the point of being languid, his face was set in determination...and something else...deep longing. He knew she could not see or hear him but he would take this moment that he had waited for so long and tell her who he was...to tell her all. His handsome features grew serious; his rich voice filled the ballroom as he started to explain.

"How do I begin to tell you all that I am?"

"It has been too long for me to remember my first moment of self-awareness but I was there at the beginning of all consciousness. Fashioned and fed by the dreams of men I have been known by many names; Morpheus, Hermes, Master of Illusion, and Dream catcher to name a few. But it was ironic that I, the vessel of deepest desires, was devoid of pleasure or pain. Although I was filled with the imaginings of countless dreamers I had none of my own."

"As the centuries passed and the number of dreamer increased I quietly grew in power and became more than my masters even knew. But it was irrelevant, you see, for I wanted nothing...desired nothing."

"If you were to ask me at that time I would have told you that I was content for I did not know there was more than what I possessed. Then one day, out of all the dreams that echoed within me one small voice spoke in a way that none had before...I listened closer...it was the fantasy of a young girl whose mother had given her a dancing doll in a golden cage. The girl's rich imagination had used the gift for a flight of fancy and imagined she was a beautiful princess who had found true love."

"It was a common dream, a dream of many young girls, yet some enchantment wrapped itself around me for I, who held the visions of Popes and Kings, found myself enraptured by this girl's simple fantasy. Why this particular voice out of all that I had heard should affect me so when none had before I did not know. I suspected that somehow it was the dreamer and not the dream."

"That was just the beginning, for I found myself waiting patiently for her next fantasy to echo within me. And when I went too long without hearing her voice for the first time I knew what it was to want. Fortunately for me this young girl soon had another dream, and then another...each richer and more detailed than the dream before it. That is when I learned what satisfaction and pleasure were for these dreams were special to me and found a place in my inert soul."

The handsome man stepped up to Sarah's stilled form and gently cupped her cheek with his hand, "Yes, Sarah, the young girl was you. Perhaps it has always been part of the master design that I would slumber until I heard your voice, to be the door that only you could open, but from your mind I found my salvation. Your resplendent dreams called to me across time and space, awakened me like Lazarus from the tomb. In you I knew I had found my own heart."

The man's hand slowly slid away from Sarah's cheek as he stared into her unblinking eyes, his voice grew hoarse with emotion, desperately willing her to understand.

"The Master of Dreams fell in love with you, Sarah, and finally has a dream of his own."

He slowly stepped back away from her, "As time went by and you continued to dream my need for you grew. I was no longer satisfied to just hear your voice; I wanted to be with you. I called out to you but you could not hear me. At that time I knew what pain was for it seemed all that I possessed was worthless."

"But powers beyond even my own took pity and brought you to me by way of the Goblin King. When you first saw me something deep inside of you recognized me as your own and in awe you whispered my name, "The Labyrinth."'

"Sarah, how can I explain how I felt at that moment? What words could possibly express the joy I knew at the fulfillment of my deepest desire. And then you were finally here, within my halls, it was more intoxicating and wondrous than I could have imagined. Sarah, my Sarah, we will be together soon."

"The moment we touched you entered my world, the world of dreams...a place that exists beyond time and space. With your first touch you became mine, and I yours.

You are not yet ready, but I know the day will come when you remember who and what I am and that you belong with me. On the day you need me and call out we will be together...forever."

"You will not lose to the Goblin King, my Sarah, for I will guard you through this challenge. In a way it is a pity that he will never quite understand how he lost – well, no matter – what's done is done."

"Goodbye, my Sarah – until we meet again."

With that the man replaced his bone mask, moved his arm in the air and restarted time.


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